John
by Isobel Morgan
Summary: Three stages in John Winchester's life, prior to the start of the series. Only Season 1 had aired when I wrote this, so some things aren't canon.


**1. Beginnings**

John Winchester walked slowly through the graveyard, ignoring the cold rain that was beginning to fall. He moved stiffly, like an old man, the bunch of flowers he held in his hand hanging down by his side.

He came to a stop in front of a polished new headstone; one that bore the inscription

'_**Mary Louise Winchester**_

_**Beloved daughter of Thomas and Catherine LaChance, **_

_**Wife to John, **_

_**Mother to Dean and Samuel.'**_

Below that was the date of her birth, and that of her death.

John paused, clearing his throat.

"Hello Mary."

Silence surrounded him. The graveyard was quiet, empty save for a few other mourners on the opposite side of the enclosure.

"Sorry I'm late," he continued, as if this mattered. "I couldn't remember which flowers you liked best."

He held out the lilacs in his hand, then laid them down in front of his wife's headstone.

"Can you believe that?" his voice was gruff, but the pain beneath it was clear.

"You've only been gone a few months, and I can't even remember what your favourite flowers were. I had to ask them if they remembered what you had at the funeral."

His voice cracked, tears springing to his eyes, but he dashed them angrily away.

"This isn't right!" he shouted, loud enough to turn heads across the cemetery.

John slammed his hand down on top of the headstone.

"You shouldn't be dead! Why did it have to be you?"

He remained still for a few minutes, striving to restrain the anger that was pushing through his grief.

"I still don't even know what happened," he said finally, quieter but no less emotionally.

"Everyone thinks I'm crazy, but I know what I saw. Even if I don't know how."

He flinched visibly as the raw memories resurfaced, visions of how he'd found his wife pinned impossibly to the ceiling of their baby son's nursery, her blood dripping into his crib as she burst into flames right before his eyes, setting the place ablaze with supernatural force. Further memories battled to break through, voices of the emergency service workers who'd come to the house, patiently explaining that what he was saying to them was impossible, that he was in shock, that he should look to his sons instead of babbling nonsense.

Angrily, he shoved the memories away, locking them in a part of his mind where they couldn't control him.

"But I'm gonna find out," he vowed, his hand gripping Mary's headstone. "I've been looking into... this kind of thing. Spoken to some people who can help. And once I've found it, the thing that hurt you, I'm gonna kill it."

His voice was clearer now, deadly seriousness and grim determination written across his face.

"I couldn't save you, Mary, but I can revenge you. Stop whatever the hell did this to you from doing it to anyone else."

He thought of their sons, four-year-old Dean and baby Sammy, both of whom would now have to grow up without a mother, channelling his rage into a focussed resolve to hunt down whoever - or whatever - was responsible and make them pay. It wouldn't leave any other children motherless, not if he could help it.

"The boys miss you somethin' powerful," John spoke up again.

"Sammy's too little to know what happened, and Dean keeps asking me where you are but... I think he understands you're not coming back."

John found himself smiling, despite himself.

"Course it took a few yellin' sessions to get through to that. He's a little firecracker, our Dean. Gonna grow up to be quite a man. They both will; I promise I'll take good care of them, Mary. I'm gonna teach both our boys to look after themselves."

He stood there a further few minutes, then he patted the top of the headstone once more, and walked away.

**2. Progress**

The sunshine blazed down on the cemetery, another scorching Lawrence summer day. John Winchester once again walked down the path that led to his wife's grave, holding both of his sons by the hand. Nine-year-old Dean clutched a spray of lilacs in his other hand, while Sammy, now five-and-a-half, was carrying his stuffed blue rabbit.

The family stood solemnly by the grave as Dean laid down the flowers.

"We miss you, Mom," he said, stepping back to stand beside his father, but he didn't reach up to retake John's hand. The boy was growing up fast, and he didn't want anyone to think he was some baby who needed to hold his father's hand, just cos he was sad.

Privately, Dean wished his mom was still around, but he wasn't scared, not of anything, and he'd been in plenty of fights to prove it, as the fading bruises on his upper arms and chest bore witness. He won most fights too; putting the lessons his father had given him to good use.

He knew his grandparents didn't approve of this; he'd heard his dad arguing with them on the phone about it one night, when he'd gotten up to check on Sammy.

He glanced over at his little brother, who was chewing nervously on his rabbit's ear as he stared at their mother's headstone. He felt a little sorry for Sammy, who couldn't even remember what their mother looked like. Dean only had vague memories of their mother, but it was better than nothing, and he knew the fact that she wasn't around anymore meant he had to look out for Sammy too.

"Dean, take your brother over there for a minute, will you?" John spoke up, gesturing to the trees that stood twenty feet away from the line of headstones.

Dean obeyed, taking hold of Sammy's hand and tugging him away towards the trees.

John waited for them to get out of earshot before he began.

"I'm getting closer, Mary. I know it's taken longer than I'd hoped, but I really think I'm getting there."

He knelt down, clenching his fists almost unconsciously as he did so.

"And the boys... I'm doing the best I can. I'm teaching them how to take care of themselves, and each other. And I'm doing good work too. I'm helping people, hunting down anything like what took you, killing evil things. I haven't done what I set out to do yet, but I found a new purpose. I'm teaching the boys about it all too, so they know what to look out for."

He glanced over at his sons, who were both squatting in the dirt under a tree, their backs to him. Dean was poking something on the ground with a stick and appeared to be trying to convince Sammy to so the same.

"I'll keep them safe, Mary. Like I promised."

He stayed there a few minutes more, then got to his feet, calling over to the boys. They came running back across, Dean still holding the stick in his hand.

"Come on boys, I want to teach you both some more ju-jitsu when we get home."

"Awesome!" Dean leapt up in the air, catching Sammy across the head with the stick as he did.

"Hey! Daddy, Dean hit me!"

"So hit him back," John replied, perfectly seriously. "You know I told you boys you need to learn to look after yourselves."

Sam looked up at his father with solemn eyes, then turned and punched his big brother on the arm. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Not like that, doofus. You gotta put your weight behind it, like this."

The boy raised his fist, but stopped at the look on his father's face.

"Don't pick on your brother, Dean. You should be looking out for him. He's your responsibility too."

"Yes sir."

His elder son lowered his fist, putting both hands behind his back to show he was doing what he was told. John didn't believe in hitting his sons when they misbehaved - not while he was sober anyway - but he sure as hell was going to make certain they knew when they'd stepped out of line. Life had shown him plenty of what was out there in the world, and he needed his children to learn to respect and obey him, so that should it come to it, he could rely on them following his lead and maybe it would save their lives.

But that didn't mean he didn't love his sons, so he reached out and ruffled Dean's hair to show the boy he was forgiven.

"Come on boys. Say goodbye to your Mom and let's go."

**3. Tangled Webs**

The wind was whipping up into a storm, but John paid it no attention as he stood before the grave. There was grey in his hair now, a few more lines in his face, but it wasn't this that made him look so much older than he was. John Winchester was tired, not just from the long car trip it had taken to get back here, but from everything he'd done over the last twenty two years in the pursuit of his wife's killer.

He wasn't proud of it all, knew he relied a little too much on hitting a bar or a liquor store once a job was done and losing himself in a blur of alcohol, but he kept on telling himself it didn't matter, not as long as he was working towards finally finishing this.

Only now, it was so much more than that. He'd been hunting for a long time, seen so much, and he couldn't ignore the signs that had been appearing with alarming frequency of late. Something was coming, something big and he planned to enlist a friend's help with that later on, but he needed to clear his head a little before he could face it. And so he'd come here, back to the place where it had all started, to try and gain a little clarity.

"Hello Mary. It's been a long time, I know. I'm sorry. Things have been so crazy, I haven't -" he stopped, realising how ridiculous it was to be apologising to his wife's grave for ignoring her. It wasn't as if he didn't think about Mary all the time, how hard it had been to learn to live without her, to raise their children by himself, seeing aspects of her in them all the damn time...

"It's getting closer. I know I've said that before, but it really is. Finally. After all this time, I really think I can finish this. Maybe then the boys and me can rest a little easier."

Which brought his thoughts back round to the decision he'd reached on the drive back here.

"I'm gonna make sure they don't get hurt, too. Sammy's safe, he's away..."

John automatically shut off the associated thoughts that sprang up at the mention of his younger son, and the blazing row they'd had when Sam had declared his intention to go away to school, breaking up the family unit for the first time.

"Dean's okay too. He can look after himself."

A hint of pride surfaced in John's voice. Despite the split with Sam, he knew both of his sons had learned not just how to fight, and to hunt evil, but to protect themselves, and each other. Dean was off hunting by himself, chasing a voodoo cult in New Orleans, and John had every confidence that his son could handle it, would finish it without needing any help from his father.

But there was more to it than that. John knew he couldn't continue to keep his sons by his side, not if he was right about the changing climate. There was a job that had caught his attention, a bunch of men disappearing in California that seemed connected, and he still intended to follow that up, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was more going on. He didn't know for sure if it really was related to Mary's killer, but it was something big, something he couldn't ignore, and he wanted his sons kept away until he knew what the score was. He wouldn't let them get hurt; he'd promised Mary that much, not to mention the promise he'd made to himself.

It had occurred to him on numerous occasions over the years that the safest place for his children was far away from the kind of trouble he went chasing after, but the opposite was also true. The more they knew about supernatural evil, the more prepared they would be, and the more they faced, the better they became at what they did. And his sons were the best.

But still, when he finally tracked down and killed that thing, he knew he couldn't have his sons there by his side, couldn't risk them getting hurt. And that was why he was leaving now, not waiting for Dean to come back. If everything turned out okay, then maybe he'd send for him, but not until he'd gotten a better idea of what was going on.

John said his goodbyes to Mary one more time, then turned and made his way out of the cemetery, heading for Missouri's house. She could help him to get a feel for this, tell him if he was heading in the right direction, but also if his boys were in danger.

Maybe sometime soon, this really would all be over, and the family could be together again. That hope had never faded within John Winchester, any more than the determination to kill that son-of-a-bitch that murdered his wife, and he wasn't going to rest until he had achieved both of these.


End file.
